Paralysis Analysis

Half way through the semester, classes are going well, Laura’s easily picked up my slack at home, work is going well.

Training
Plan – I had a decent plan which was to alternate Strength in Motion and Concept II, it was decent but failed to account for the biggest factor, me. After three days of pretty hard training, I don’t want to do it again. I especially grow tired of the hassel of the gym. Next time I plan I need to account for my wishy-washy-ness much better. I need to account for days when class is cancelled and I need to build in training days that are light. I achieved this recently but as an afterthought by taking some days and just doing z-health.
Execution – poor. As I mentioned before. I burned our with the Art of Strength fast. I didn’t want to train most Thursdays. I took a couple five day weekends from training and felt like crap as a result. I totally failed on this. The one thing I did handle well was adapting to days at home. I was happy for the opportunity to get home and just go with one kettlebell. I guess I like my little home routines better than most.
Mental/Emotional – Pretty good. The classes eventually add up and get me down on occasion but it was primarily the two weekends where I took days off, I felt really crumby and grumpy. I cut back on caffeine too, to try and avoid the bad feelings. I’m still excited for things that are happening and will happen but I do see dips occasionally where there is none. That either means train less or train more, do the opposite of what I’m doing at the moment.
Other – I’m not blogging much, I’ve just not felt like it at 8 or 8:30 when I get home. I need to do that. I still need to get that new contest out there. I have made a point of visiting three forums on a weekly basis, straighttothebar, farmstrength and virtualmeets. I’m happy with that level of interaction.

Going forward – I’m off to the gym in a bit. My focus right now is on just doing stuff and keep doing it. I don’t have a specific goal. I’ve been doing some z-health and plan to continue. I’m using just enough barbell stuff to keep me interested, some light bag work and a good bit of kettlebels. I’m focusing on movement more than on weight.

I tried to buy a new kettlebell

When I visited Chris Rice recently he showed off his latest second hand acquisition, a pink, 8K, competition style kettlebell. It may sounds silly but the smaller kettlebells can be incredibly brutal, a few sets of clean or snatches and they are disproportionately hard on the trainees forearms. A competition style bell is much larger surface area, easier on the forearms.
I decided to buy one of these for home, I don’t use an 8K much but I’d be grateful and Laura would enjoy the relief from the beating of the smaller 8K bell. I decided not to wait from one to come up second hand but just get one. This meant going to the American Kettlebell Club (AKC) website and finding the page where to order from. I sent them $70 via paypal and I waited.
Ten days passed and I heard nothing. I sent them an emailing asking if they normally send any kind of confirmation email and what was the timeframe for my kettlebell. They told me it would be three weeks and they would ship it. I waited five weeks and after hearing nothing I emailed again. They promised me that they were waiting for their shipment but I’d have it soon enough. At this point Laura said she was tired of waiting and I was too, we canceled our order.

At this point, I’ll buy all my kettlebells on the second hand market or from the Art of Strength collection.

Slacking on posting

I’ve been poor about posting. Some of it is just that I don’t have access to a computer for several hours after I workout and some of it is me slacking. This weekend was good but the two preceding, I took too many days from lifting and would feel crappy after too many days off. This weekend, on the other hand, I took Friday off but I did 7 chapters of the 8 chapters of Freeport. Then on Sunday I worked through the basic Z-health routine.
anyway, here’s to posting more in the upcoming weeks.
I’m half way through my semester.